Talk:Ronald Cartland
The War That Came Early Cartland was one of the potentially interesting elements of The War That Came Early, but like every other potentially interesting thread in that series, HT fumbled the ball on it. A fitting resolution to the British politics story arc would have been to have Cartland be elected PM at the end of the series.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 07:02, January 5, 2017 (UTC) :You'll get no argument from me about Cartland's wasted potential; I would call him the single most disappointing element of the whole six-year slog. Not sure I agree that having him win an election is the best use to which he could have been put. There would have been something deliciously chilling about turning him into a Barry al-Fayeed type character (without the rushed and embarrassingly sloppy "conclusion"): genuinely wanting to restore democracy, but finding that the political landscape in Britain has been made so tenuous that he can't safely turn the reins of power back over to the electorate just yet. So he comes to rely on his military backers and keeps extending the period of martial law (which apparently he was doing anyway, we just got no information as to why). By the end of the series, Walsh, and more importantly, the audience for which he is proxy, must uncomfortably ask whether Cartland has been corrupted--however reluctantly--by the very creeping tyranny which he'd taken the field to oppose. The story ends without answering the question definitively. Turtle Fan (talk) 04:23, January 6, 2017 (UTC) :I would think Cartland would be too young and inexperienced in politics to have been elected PM. Someone in the conspiracy who was a bit older and more experienced would be more likely although I can't think anyone in particular at the moment. Probably no one appearing in the novels, as written, since we saw only the "Young Turks" from Walsh's POV. The novels would need a bit of a re-write to not make the individual come out of the blue. I never had the impression Cartland was in charge, only that he was heavily involved in the coup. ML4E (talk) 23:41, January 6, 2017 (UTC) ::If Cartland had been elected in '44, then depending on the date he took office he would be older than either four or five other first-time Prime Ministers. Cranmore was ten years older and might be a more age-appropriate choice. I definitely felt that Cartland was running things at the start of the coup, I got a sense that he may have been stepping back once it took shape. Last summer offered numerous examples of the phenomenon in British politics (not sure it can be called uniquely British, but it certainly is British) that the one who orchestrates the leader's downfall rarely gets to take his place. Turtle Fan (talk) 19:22, January 7, 2017 (UTC) :::Ultimately, it would have been nice if HT had told us anything useful about the coup, beyond that there was a coup and it happened offstage in about 2 pages, even though the entire volume was named for it. ::::That's what we all said at the time. Turtle Fan (talk) 05:40, January 9, 2017 (UTC) :::If books had remakes and reboots the way movies and tv shows do, the best way to remake TWTCE would be to condense everything into a trilogy, taking HT's story and cutting down to basics so that the entire story we have, would only be 2.5 volumes instead of 6, with the last half of the new third book being a wholly new story covering 1944-1946. FDR probably retires from the POTUS after 3 full terms, England and Germany attempt to transition from their provisional military governments to more permanent systems (Germany might even restore Wilhelm III to the throne as a puppet of the generals), and the USA and USSR divide Japan between them after a swift and bloody invasion like we've seen in two other HT TLs. ::::Hmm, rebooted books: Interesting thought. I could name one or two examples off the top of my head, but mostly they're treated as though written in stone. ::::I'd take out the Spanish crap, too. It had zero effect on the story, and was so blatantly padded: There's one way everyone expects this to end, and that requires nothing but serendipity; we can make it happen any old time. We'll wait till the exact moment when the rest of the story is over as well, and we'll stay in a holding pattern till then. Turtle Fan (talk) 05:40, January 9, 2017 (UTC) :::As for the possibility of England having a fairly young PM, I'm put in mind of Blackadder the Third: Episode One: Dish and Dishonesty.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 21:06, January 8, 2017 (UTC) By the way, there are throwaway lines to Cartland's sister in both the intro and the TWTPE section. I see neither as having any interest value (least of all as "trivia"), and point to the fact that neither line is part of a paragraph to show that both are unnecessary. I'd like to remove them if there are no objections. Keeping the sister on the Hist Refs page is fine, but bending over backwards to announce that she's over there is inappropriate. Turtle Fan (talk) 04:29, January 6, 2017 (UTC) :I have no objection. A similar line about Ronald in the Barbara historical sub-section also exists. ML4E (talk) 23:41, January 6, 2017 (UTC) ::TR? Turtle Fan (talk) 19:22, January 7, 2017 (UTC) :::Cut it. TR (talk) 02:12, January 8, 2017 (UTC)